How you can raise awareness and promote UX Design across your company

I joined Threefold over two years ago, and to say it was a completely different place in terms of designs awareness back then is an understatement.

You see, when I arrived, no one knew what design was, let alone the power it has to boost a company's fortunes. To be brutally honest, a lot of people in the company thought it was a complete waste of time and money. "Paint by numbers" and "make it pretty" is all they thought designers could do. And UX design was not important at all.

How many companies have this mentality? Too many. That is how many and you know what it is not their fault either. There are too many designers with their heads in the clouds. All they care about is users and making them happy. Now, I'm not going to say that I don't want users to be happy - of course, I do -, but not enough designers have empathy for the business and what it needs to survive.

So I'm going to share two ways that you can start promoting design across the business.‍

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Start talking about the ROI of Design 💰 💰 💰

Designers need to start talking more about the ROI of UX Design and how it can make the company thrive. They need to understand the business and how design can make an impact. All this directly related to keeping users happy, so you just need to come at it from a different angle. There are tons of examples online of how companies have turned around things by focussing on design. The $300 million button is one example and there are plenty more if you spend a little time looking. Design will not be taken seriously if you can't demonstrate it's value to the business—end of story.

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Send out a monthly design newsletter 📧 📧 📧

Send out a monthly newsletter to show everyone what is happening in design and to help build awareness around the work you do. This directly showcases the hard-work that design is doing each month for the company. And it is simple to do once created your first version.

I've been sending out a monthly design update newsletter ever since I arrived in Threefold and the impact it has had is fantastic. I get requests every month from people all over the company to be added it. And it has got stakeholders talking abot the impact the design team is having on the company. And each month I get comments like this from high-level stakeholders:

"SUPERB, you guys are raising the bar every month"

The format of the newsletter is pretty simple:

1. I provide a list of the projects that we are (or were) working on for the month, along with a description of what we did and why. And I also provide links to prototypes, user testing videos, and any documentation related to it. Plus pretty imagery, people love pretty images. 🙈
2.  I share a selection of design-related articles that I'd recommend reading. Now, it is worth noting that most of these articles are how design has boosted a company's revenues or impacted it in a positive way. Designers are not my target audience so I've got to find content that they would be interested in.
   

And that is it. Plus I always ask for feedback on how to improve the newsletter.

So there you have it, two ways that you can start can raising awareness and promoting UX Design across your company today. And what about Threefold today? Well, our managing director describes us as a design-first company and everyone talks about the power of design.

If enough people like and share this article, I might create a copy of my template that you can use for your own newsletters. 🤔

Anyway, peace out and much love ✌️✌️

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Oh and make sure to check out my latest adventure 👇👇👇